Resilient_Customs and Dioramas - Madame Masque, Open Faceplate Stark, Warehouse Diorama WIP

[Resilient]

Figured I should start posting some work on here! So to start, here are my last custom from a few months back now.

First up, classic Madame Masque!

I loved that Hasbro included the Classic Madame Masque head with the modern version, of course I had to make a figure for it!

Recipe

Head: Madame Masque. The alternate head has hair swapped between the modern and classic versions as well.
Upper Body: Madame Masque
Abs: Sharon Carter
Arms: Shriek
Legs: Shriek
Boots: Shield Agent - Cut the boots off and used a screw join the parts and create a boot swivel.

This was a fun little project while I was waiting for paint to dry elsewhere.

I have plenty of Stark heads from the various 80th and 20th figures that I have. I heat and yanked the faceplate off and got to trimming and:

I was also recently commissioned to build a warehouse diorama over on Instagram. It's been fun the dust the ol' cobwebs off, but certainly forgot a thing or two in the planning stages that has slowed me down as I've had to go back and revise things a couple times. It's a huge piece coming in at 20x20x20 for the interior "play space" and the side wall will be able to be used on either side.

 

[Resilient]

Carved all my bricks out and started adding some "facade" onto my planned concrete sections. All the concrete elements will be about 1/8 of an inch off the main brick areas. I ended up needing to order a new guide rail for my hot wire cutter that was taller than the one that came stock to fabricate some of the longer/thicker thin strips needed to give the piece some dimensions (and hide magnets). It was on my list of things to get eventually anyway, but I'm really excited about the potential for future pieces now that I have it.

Took the "downtime" while i waited for the rail to arrive to work on and finish the asphalt floor. At this stage, my walls are finally ready for paint.

 

[Resilient]

I think we're calling this one complete:

Measures 20x20x20. Props are my own for set dressings. Client has his own security camera props for the end of the pipes.

 

[Schizm]

Dude - this thing looks REAL in natural light. The first photo completely threw my brain for a minute.

WOW. What is this made of? It's such nice work. How many layers of paint are on the door and the accessories? Your signature is brilliant.

May I ask how many hours and how much this cost to make you vs profit? I'm just curious because this is superb - I hope you made a lot!

 

[Resilient]

Thank you @Schizm!

The dio is made from XPS foam panels. You can find them in a home depot of lowes in the insulation section. Just about everything get's at least atleast 3 layers of paint and that's before we start getting into the paint washes. Creating the rust effect takes the most, it's probably 6 or 7 colors painted by sponge.

Truthfully, I couldn't tell you the hours spent making it. I don't track that, but I know it's significant. It's a massive time commitment. I turned this one around quicker than I thought, but due to NJ transit I also gained a few hours of my life back this month with commuting being a mess. I do everything by hand so, for example, to create a brick pattern I have to measure it out (my brick dimensions are 1/4" x 5/8"), draw the brick pattern on, carve it out with an X-acto knife, and then trace over my cuts with a pencil to open the seams. As you could probably imagine with larger pieces like this, it takes a lot of time just to get to a stage where its ready for paint. I'm sure I could cut down the time by not drawing the pattern and just going straight to cutting, but I don't really trust myself to do that. There's texture rollers and presses that I've seen people use to imprint the pattern onto the foam, but I'm not sure I really like the result from what I've seen.

If I were to track the time vs the final cost, I'd be making well below federal minimum wage I'm sure. I did make some decent money on this commission though and I'm hoping to line another one up with a few people having inquired. Nothing locked in yet though. The money is obviously great and I'm sure this sounds somewhat disingenuous, but I'm just still amazed people are interested in what I do. I started taking diorama commissions during Covid lock down to supplement unemployment and help keep the lights on. I didn't build my first dio with the intention of taking on commissions, it was just a covid project since I wasn't going to be able to leave the house for a couple weeks, but people started reaching out. I've just loved learning a little something new with each project or trying a new technique, and of course being able to offset the rising cost of collecting with the extra money rolling in. I love going back and comparing early work to newer work and seeing the evolution (although I feel for some of the early clients who got work that doesn't even look like it was built by the same person at this point!).

One of my biggest learnings in Diorama photography is that natural light is a god damn cheat code. Here's my last diorama I made where I made that discovery. I was encourage by a lot of people in the facebook groups to make a video putting my hand in it (which is over on my instagram). It apparently tricked quite a few people who scrolled by it a little too quickly at first.

 

[Red Ogre]

I've done a couple of dios with that foam but there's no way I'm going to cut bricks that small. My walls were designed with much larger blocks and even after that little bit my hands hurt like hell. I would go blind staring at all those tiny bricks.
That's skill with a capital KILL!

 

[Resilient]

I've done a couple of dios with that foam but there's no way I'm going to cut bricks that small. My walls were designed with much larger blocks and even after that little bit my hands hurt like hell. I would go blind staring at all those tiny bricks.
That's skill with a capital KILL!

I always hate myself a little when i'm halfway through a wall and look up to see nothing but full rows of bricks with no window cutout or anything to help make it go a little faster..

 

[Schizm]

Yep, that picture fools my brain as well and I am VERY detail-oriented. Impressive work. Thanks for the insight!

Do you mostly do street/wall dios or have you done other set-ups?